01_AzuelosVoltaggio_161_178_copia_161_178 10/07/15 11:33 Pagina 173 173 THE “ANGEL SENT FROM BEFORE THE LORD” IN TARGUM JOSHUA 5,14 173 Aphraates, who often demonstrate their knowledge of Jewish tra- ditions, borrowed this idea from an earlier Jewish interpretation 41. In Justin, however, we find a different, distinctly christological, interpretation of the “archistratege”: Jesus Christ himself is the avrcistra,thgoj 42. In Dialogue with Tripho 61, Justin identifies the mysterious figure in Josh 5,13–15 with Christ: “God begot before all creatures a Beginning, who was a certain rational power pro- ceeding from himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion he calls himself ‘Captain’ (avrcistra,thgon), when he appeared in human form to Joshua, the son of Nave”. We find a similar inter- pretation in Dialogues with Tripho 62 as well. IV. The description of the angel The naming of angels is a common tradition in the Palestinian Targums of the Pentateuch. A tosefta from the Cairo Genizah Frag- ment Targum goes one step further by inserting an expansion that is found neither in the Hebrew Bible nor in Targum Jonathan of the Prophets, and includes a physical description of the Angel. The Targum Jonathan to Josh 5,13 writes simply: .hylbql ~yaq arbg ahw azxw yhwny[ @qzw wxyryb [Xwhy hwh dk hwhw “And it came about when Joshua was in Jericho that he lifted his eyes and saw, behold, a man was standing in front of him”. In the Geniza Tosefta (Cambridge T-S B 13.12) we find the fol- lowing text 43: [hymXd akalm ahw] azxw yhny[ @qzw wxyryb [abrq axga]l [Xwhy byrq dk hwhw .wxryl d[w ~yrcm !mk hytwpw aymX [d[w a[r]a !mk hykrwa layra 41 According to HANNAH, Michael and Christ, 40, “it is probable that they derived this exegesis from earlier Jewish commentators” and they share some aspects of the rabbinic exegesis in BerR 97:3 and ShemR 32:2-3 (quoted in ibid. 40, n. 66); cf. also A.R. MICHALAK, Angels as Warriors in Late Second Temple Jewish Literature (WUNT 2.330; Tübingen 2012) 115. 42 JUSTIN, Dial. 34; 61; 62. 43 KASHER, Targumic Toseftot, 70-76.